Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/490

486 from Buffalo to Chicago. In 1857 a road across southern Ohio and on to St. Louis was completed; this was practically a continuation of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. By 1860 Ohio had what was considered in that day very ample railway facilities, a condition that contributed largely to the position the state at once took in manufacturing.

Ohio ranks fifth among the states in the gross value of its manufactured products. The state has always been quick in appreciating the demands of its trade environment. Its waterways, natural and artificial, before the period of steam roads, gave it an advantage. No state responded more promptly and effectively to the era of railroad construction. A study of the evolution of railways in this country shows that the network pattern first appeared in Ohio. Manufacturing is invariably stimulated by shipping facilities. Excellent transportation service for decades has been available for producers in this state. Furthermore, the geographic center of population, now in Indiana, has been in and near Ohio for sixty years. Convenience of raw material, accessibility of markets through shipping facilities for finished products, and stability in the supply of labor insured by a normal equilibrium between wages and the cost of reasonable living are essential conditions to a state's maintaining its rank in manufacturing.

The first blast furnace in Ohio was built in 1804 in Mahoning County. The number of furnaces gradually increased throughout the area of the Logan and Pottsville formations which contain the meager iron ore. Limestone is also quite liberally distributed in this same region. Charcoal was used in these furnaces for over two decades, after which coal slowly supplanted wood. Local demands for cooking stoves and other simple necessities stimulated the initial working of these ores. To some extent, the finished product was shipped outside the state. Ohio, ever since these early days, has continued to give an annual output of iron ore, but the supply ceased years ago to be of relative importance.

While fertility of soil insuring a cheap food-supply, and easy topography inviting modern transportation methods, and mobility of labor sustaining manufactories, are of prime importance to industrial growth, nevertheless environment has had much to do in the development of states. The environment here referred to involves the extent to which adjacent commonwealths have either responded to their physiography >r have made progress in spite of it. Up to the present time, however, ,' Ohio owes but little of its development to mere geographic situation. But extraneous influences will be of increasing importance in the commercial future of the state. I refer especially to the midway position that Ohio's lake ports occupy in reference to its own and the Appalachian coal fields, and the Superior iron areas. At the present time Ohio stands second only to Pennsylvania in its annual output of steel and